For incandescent bulbs the power drop around the zero voltage cross doesn’t last long enough to extinguish the filament, since it’s basically just glowing from being heated. The only lights which actually do “flicker” under nominal conditions are old ballast driven florescent lights. Most modern LEDs rectify the AC and modern CFLs boost the line frequency to like 20kHz to prevent the arc from getting extinguished.
Incandescent bulbs like that in the picture don’t really flicker. They might pulsate a little bit but even at their faintest they would still have significant light output.
Some LED bulbs do flicker though, it depends on how they implement the AC to DC conversion. If they flicker, it is easily noticeable to the human eye, especially when looking at motion.
High frequency is generally bad for transmission line losses, so getting power from A to B is better at lower frequency — DC is a great option here.
If we switched to DC, many things would still flicker though as they would presumably use switching power supplies, but those could be relatively high frequency like you said.
Interestingly, airplanes use 400Hz, as transmission over distance doesn’t matter, and transformers can be made much smaller/lighter.
Even a switch mode power supply doesn’t really flicker since they have a rectification and smoothing stage on the output to produce a DC voltage. The switching is done on the input to set the duty cycle which controls the voltage/current ratio at the output.
As far as I understand, a DCDC converter is less efficient and more expensive than an equivalent ACAC converter. I don’t know about switching power supplies, and whether that’s true or extendable to the transformer case, sorry.
Long distance point to point power transmission (like internationally) is often DC because transmission losses become more important.
They’re more efficient than old school ac-dc linear supplies (of which an ac transformer is just a part of). However if you just want to step up or down ac voltage, transformers are quite efficient.
But we could just attach an antenna to our roofs and steal electricity, I consider it worth the transmission loss if we can create more transmission loss.
No it’s not lol they still flicker out eyes just dont pick it up
For incandescent bulbs the power drop around the zero voltage cross doesn’t last long enough to extinguish the filament, since it’s basically just glowing from being heated. The only lights which actually do “flicker” under nominal conditions are old ballast driven florescent lights. Most modern LEDs rectify the AC and modern CFLs boost the line frequency to like 20kHz to prevent the arc from getting extinguished.
Flickering lights used to mean a temporary < 1s power outage.
Incandescent bulbs like that in the picture don’t really flicker. They might pulsate a little bit but even at their faintest they would still have significant light output.
Some LED bulbs do flicker though, it depends on how they implement the AC to DC conversion. If they flicker, it is easily noticeable to the human eye, especially when looking at motion.
It has a 60Hz electric waveform in, and it produces visible light, which is in part a ~500THz wave.
Do you think we will ever change our power grid to have a higher frequency so that our bulbs don’t flicker when we record things?
How about banning flickering lamps? I’d ban screeching power adapters too.
High frequency is generally bad for transmission line losses, so getting power from A to B is better at lower frequency — DC is a great option here.
If we switched to DC, many things would still flicker though as they would presumably use switching power supplies, but those could be relatively high frequency like you said.
Interestingly, airplanes use 400Hz, as transmission over distance doesn’t matter, and transformers can be made much smaller/lighter.
Even a switch mode power supply doesn’t really flicker since they have a rectification and smoothing stage on the output to produce a DC voltage. The switching is done on the input to set the duty cycle which controls the voltage/current ratio at the output.
Also if we switched to DC, you’d need costly dcdc transformers to step up the voltage for transmission and back down again for domestic usage
Aren’t switching mode power supplies smaller and more efficient than regular AC transformers anyway?
As far as I understand, a DCDC converter is less efficient and more expensive than an equivalent ACAC converter. I don’t know about switching power supplies, and whether that’s true or extendable to the transformer case, sorry.
Long distance point to point power transmission (like internationally) is often DC because transmission losses become more important.
They’re more efficient than old school ac-dc linear supplies (of which an ac transformer is just a part of). However if you just want to step up or down ac voltage, transformers are quite efficient.
But we could just attach an antenna to our roofs and steal electricity, I consider it worth the transmission loss if we can create more transmission loss.